84 AFRICAN MUSIC SOCIETY JOURNAL NOTES AND NEWS The next conference of the International Folk Music Council will be held in conjunction with an International Festival from June 29th to July 5th, 1955, at Oslo, by invitation of Norges Ungdomslag and Norsk Folkemusikklag. At Min dolo, in Northern Rhodesia, a collection of tape recordings of the unwritten literature of the Bantu was started towards the end of 1953, under the care of Mr. John Sharman. CHURA NA NYOKA (THE TOAD AND THE SNAKE) The Bulletin of C.E.P.S.I. (Centres des Problemes Sociaux Indigenes) has published in its issue of November 1953 the text anq musical score of a play devised by Joseph Kiwele, and performed in Elisabethville in June 1952. The play is based on a traditional Congo story and the arrangement includes dances, songs, and dialogue-the songs, composed by Kiwele, include traditional Mrican meloclies. Kiwele, who was born in the village of Mpala, Lake Tanganyika, showed evidence of musical ability from childhood and received some training in European liturgical music while still at school. He came to Elisabethville as assistant to Dam Anschaire Lamoral, the founder of the well-known Mrican choir "Chorale ala Croix de Culvre"; K.iwele conceived of the idea of training the choir to sing Mrican music and wrote several collections of songs based on traditional airs. At this time he composed the work which made him widely known-his M issa Kitanga, which was first sung at the Mission St. Jean, then at the Cathedral in Elisabethville and more recently in Antwerp. Kiwele then turned his attention to the composition of musical plays incorporating traditional songs and dances, of which Chura na Jl{yoka is the best known, but he returned to liturgical music, and on Christmas Eve, 1952, his M issayajubile was sung at the Mission St. Jean. This mass, dedicated to the Vicar Apostolic of Katanga in honour of the fiftieth year of his priesthood, marked a new level of musical achievement. Profoundly Christian in spirit and deeply responsive to the dramatic motives of the Mass, it is African not European in quality ; drums and xylophones are used to accompany and reinforce the melodic themes, and the distinctive rhythms of Mrican music form the framework of the whole composition. Dom Thomas More Weitz, O.S.B., in his introduction to the text of Chura na Jl{yok.a writes of the Missa ya Jubile : "Cette tres belle Messe... est vraiment un nouveau chef-d'oeuvre de musique authentiquement religieuse... Joseph Kiwele a indeniablement enrichi la musique bantoue. En effet, il parvient a exposer un theme en le repetant dans des rythmes differents, parfois usant du renversement, creant de la sorte un grand mouvement grace auquel ses compositions... ferment un tout substantiel. Avant Kiwele, cela n'existait pas; au contraire, le theme, sauf dans les pieces courtes, etait rapidement epuise... Joseph Kiwele... reussit a prouver que la musique bantoue merite d'occuper une place dans la musique chorale, tant religieuse que profane." -(Acknowledgement to Africa, July, 1954, Journal of the International Mrican Institute). Here is a list of works by Joseph Kiwele, very kindly sent by Iv. Liberton. (1) Chants des pagayeurs de Bwana Kawaya. (2) Chant en l'honneur du Prince Regent : Nikalolo wa Belgiki, Bulamatari. (3) Finale du chant des martyres de L'Uganda. (4) Chants de chasse a!'elephant. (5) Chants des pagayeurs du Fleuve. (6) Missa Katanga: Missa ya Jubile. (7) Cantate a la gloire de la Belgique. (8) Chura na Yyoka : "Le crapaud et le Serpent." (9) Chants de chasse au petit gibier: "Ba mwata Shilemba." Chants d'investiture d'un nouveau chef: Ilinso. (10) Ni Neo: C'est aujourd'hulla fete. Manyema-Marungu famjizeni Sherehe : Les manyema et les marungu rejouissez-vous. Y a nini tena hui shangwe wauliza Kapulo : Quelle est cette fete Kapulo? Kwa herini: "Au revoir." (11) Tristesse d'adam et Eve. } milit Danse du Demon. musique arre. (12) Salamu Walkia : Salut Reine des Cieux. (13) Ya Baba yetu Benedicti: "C'est la fete de notre Pere St. Benoit." (14) Priere de Sefu-Moqueries des villageois-tristesse de villageois a la chute du camp Sergent de Bruyne.
NOTES AND NEWS 85 A L'INSTITUT D'ETUDES CENTRAFRICAINES Le Club des Chercheurs de l'institut d'etudes Centrafricaines a organise a Brazzaville, au Club House de l'institut, sa premiere manifestation publique. C'est M. Pepper, musicologue de l'i.e.c. et President du Oub, qui assuma!a responsabilite de cette initiative en faisant entendre une serie des enregistrements musicaux qu'il s'attache depuis plusieurs anm!es a. recueillir et a etudier. Le Professeur Trochain, Directeur de l'institut d'etudes Centrafricaines, presenta!a personnalite de M. Pepper, et!'ensemble de ses travaux depuis!'etude des langages tambourines qui lui fut suggeree par le Gouverneur General Eboue, jusqu'a!'etude elargie des langages musicaux eta 'l'aperception' du systeme fondamental de l'harmonie africaine. Herbert Pepper est en train de livrer, a!'ethnologic africaine entendue de fac;on!a plus large, un enseignement fondamental. Ses derniers travaux prennent figure de decouvertes ; jamais peut..etre le symbolisme bantou compris non plus de fac;on limitative et notarnrnent figurative, mais entendu comme un vaste systeme vital, jamais ce symbolisme n'aura ete approche de fac;on plus sure. M. Pepper a su assouplir son oreille a tous les intervalles musicaux ; il a su garder lies le motif d'inspiration,!a melodie et le rythme qui se creent l'un 1' autre, et!a creation poetique sans lequelles autres elements n' existent pas. La demonstration parfaite fut donnee de cette interpenetration in times des genres, dans le chant des funerailles kouyous, ou le theme musical nait d'un sanglot, se construit et se developpe ensuite. Auparavant, le rythme, dans le reglement d'un differend, avait entraine la conviction generale, sociale, des individus. Au debut de sa conference, M. Pepper avait fait entendre un langage tambourine banda ou le linga reproduit les qualites musicales de la voix, puis un chant magique entrecoupe des coups de sifflets exorciseurs, tandis que sous l'accompagnement des pluriarcs, le nganga improvise : "Le. Solei! se couche ; il fait nuit; mais je vois... " Un choeur d'olifants batekes ramena, dans les criteres occidentaux, a quelques siecles en arriere par la combinaison, dans une gamme pentatonique, d'elements musicaux simples. Puis, apres des danses de veillee mortuaire, un choeur de femmes ou la cloche gemellee rythme le chant accompagnant!a naissance des esprits-jumeaux, une "berceuse pour un enfant qui vient d'c':tre tatoue, M. Pepper fit entendre les chants d'initiation et les chants therapeutiques de l'ikebe, interpretes par de voix d'une densite, d'une vibration etonnantes. Ce fut ensuite l'extaordinaire poeme chante du chasseur: "La rosee du matin me trompe" et le retour triomphal, rauque, etrange, avec ses tyroliennes desarticulees. Mais peu apres ce sera la voix nostalgique, attachante, grave, d'un vieillard babinga dans le chant de 1' elephant, puis, pour terminer, le choeur de la divination par le feu. -(Acknowledgement to Africa, July, 1954, Journal of the International Mrican Institute). * * * * * LECTURE ON AFRICAN MUSIC At a joint meeting of the Royal Mrican Society, the Royal Empire Society and the International Mrican Institute, held in London on October 6, 1953, with Sir John Maud in the Chair, Mr. Hugh Tracey, founder and director of the Mrican Music Society and author of Chopi Musicians, gave a lecture on Mrican Music. Mr. Tracey spoke of the powerful integrative force of music and dance in Mrican societies. All aspects of the life of the individual or the group-love, war, friendship, politics, domestic strife, as well as the community's moral judgements-are expressed in music and dance, and in these activities the Mrican truly re-creates himself. For all those who wish to understand the Mrican and to assist in his integration into the life of the modern world, nothing is more worthy of systematic and sympathetic study than Mrican music and dancing. The wide range of forms and of emotional content to be found in Mrican music was strikingly illustrated by records, made from some of Mr. Tracey's own recordings. These included a melody of great charm and gaiety played on a flute by a Hirna herd-boy, a vigorous choral number from Sukumaland, an intermezzo played by one of the famous Chopi xylophone orchestras, a legend from Buganda chanted by a local bard, and a concerted item from Southern Congoplayed by drums and xylophones, in which the peculiar snarl of weighted drums combined with the occasional high-pitched wail of voices to produce an intensely dramatic effect. Mr. Tracey also showed a film of the remarkable dances performed by Tutsi dancers in Ruanda Urundi; the dancers, most of them well over six feet tall, displayed a sinuous grace of movement, enhanced by their mane-like head-dresses of banana fibre. -(Acknowledgement to Africa, January, 1954, Journal of the International Mrican Institute).
86 AFRICAN MUSIC SOClliTY JOURNAL AFRICAN MUSIC FOR A FILM The incidental music to "The Heart Of The Matter" by Graham Greene was arranged by the distinguished singer and actor, Edric Connor, who has made a special study of African music. The story of the film was set in the West African Protectorate of Sierra Leone, and the music was played and sung by coloured artists. The chief instrument used by the players was the West African Balangi, a type of xylophone made of pepper-tree wood which is indigenous to West Africa. The Ba!angi it is said, dates back to the days of the Carthaginian Empire when trade between Carthage and West Africa was common. The keys of the Ba!angi are about three-quarters of an inch thick and under each is slung a hollow cup which acts as a resonator. Balangi bands are noted for their rhythm rather than their melody, and as a rule accompany singers. A band normally consists of six or eight Balangi, two or three stringed harps, drums and a marracca. Apart from the bands which were recorded on location in Freetown, the chief Balangi instrumentalist heard in "The Heart Of The Matter" was Mohammed Kamara, a West African musician now in England. Edric Connor arranged several pieces of West African folk music for the film and also composed a piece he called "Invocation", for the guitarist who effectively accompanied his speaking voice during the scene in which the survivors from the U-boat disaster were carried ashore. The use of genuine African music was most commendable and greatly enhanced the atmosphere of the whole film. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, announces a reprint of The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa, by Percival R. Kirby. Details : 1953, xix, 285 p., 73 pls., map; price 2. 2s. Od. plus 1/3 postage; copies obtainable from the Witwatersrand University Press, Milner Park, Johannesburg, or from any bookseller. During April, the Government of the Belgian Congo sent a group to Ruanda-Urundi with the object of collecting the folk music of the people there. The group was led by M. Andre Scoby, Head of African Broadcasts, who was accompanied by M. Jean Stroobants, radio-engineer. As a result of their work, it has been possible to begin the building up of a large library of the music of Ruanda and Urundi ; the collection, which has just been put on discs, includes 19 Batua songs, 20 Watusi songs, 32 Bahutu songs and 51 instrumental pieces, totalling 122 characteristic numbers. These records will be frequently heard in the African broadcasts of Radio Congo Belge. Every Tuesday, at 5.50 p.m., Leopoldville time, ten minutes of Ruanda-Urundi folk music are broadcast. These transmission are broadcast on the 32;57 metre waveband. NEW LIST OF UNESCO PUBLICATIONS IN THE FIELD OF THE ARTS A complete catalogue of all Unesco publications in the field of the Arts has just been issued by the Organization. Specialists in this field may obtain copies free of charge upon application to Unesco, 19 Avenue Kleber, Paris, or to appropriate Unesco national distributors. The complete 1954 General Catalogue is also now available, and gives full details of all Unesco publications currently obtainable. Both the General Catalogue and the special list are published separately in English and in French, with indications given as to other language editions of the publications listed. What may be of particular interest to readers of African Music is the collection of the Musee de l'homme (Paris). This is a discography compiled by Madame Simone Roche. All records listed were either collected by research workers in the course of expeditions to various parts of Asia and Africa or recorded by soldiers of colonial regiments stationed in France. (Bilingual : E, F ; 74 pp., 6! X 9t; 16 X 24 em. (CUA) 1952). "Africans Must Learn to Accept Fair Criticism." This is the title of an abbreviated report by Professor W. M. Macmillan, printed in East Africa and Rhodesia, April 2, 1953, and the following is an extract. African public opinion is still at a stage where, with honourable exceptions, it is unlikely that an unpopular or minority view will gain champions- where the appearance of success, as perhaps on the Gold Coast, counts for everything. It would greatly simplify things if we could deal with an African opinion which understood that we are engaged, not on problems with an exact solution, but in finding a working policy; that there is room for much difference of opinion; and that the
NOTES AND NEWS 87 only way forwards is by the dialectic of debate. Unfortunately, we have failed to provide the machinery for educating public opinion, and now it gets late. Our own share in fostering the necessary co-operation is far from easy. Our strong point in the past has been in simple and flattering business of acting the big brother to simple and uncritical primitives. It is another thing altogether to revise our attitude and deal wisely with the intellectuals. The handling of this class has been the very Achilles heel of our Colonial administration, and now, in spite of us, they are growing to man's estate, when paternalism will not do. Nor have the Mricans' special friends at home-for whom the situation is over-simplified by distance-learned to see things in the light. Mricans demand full equality, but have not yet learned the full meaning of it. They still expect a sort of special relationship, so that even the best students get over-much sympathy and not enough understanding discipline, having in the past been rather from without, can now only be self-discipline. Yet one day lately I found it quite impossible to explain to one champion of Mrican rights what I meant when I charged his sort with treating Mricans as proteges rather than equals. Giving them the benefit of frank and equal criticism is perhaps the root of the matter. We owe them criticism which refuses to depart from our own highest standards, trusting that their capacity to take it will grow, that they will cease to suspect anyone who disagrees with them of being an enemy. From African Affairs, January, 1954: (i) In the Gold Coast, 10,000 is being made available for cheap wireless sets, and a new rediffusion station at Bekwai is the twenty-fifth in the country. (ii) In Tanganyika, in the central coastal mountilins, the Pare, with a budget of 30,000, are financing prizes for tribal dancing and for a traditional iron-worker to tour schools. (ill) In Southern Rhodesia, the Bulawayo Little Theatre, sponsored its second eistedfodd in which competitions, arts and crafts, display, ballroom and tribal dancing, were held. From The African Listener, magazine of the Central Mrican Broadcasting Station, in the September, 1954 issue, we quote the following typical extracts from the Readers' Correspondence section: "Mrican music and songs should be played more than the European music as we enjoy the Mrican music far more.". "I am a reader of your magazine and also a new wireless owner. I feel unhappy for our Kaonde songs are not included in the Saturday programmes.... I would like to suggest that the recording van be sent back to Solewzi to make some more good recordings.' ' "May I suggest that when the recording van goes to Nyasaland it should record some of the many Mugianda songs and others which we can enjoy from the Northern Province." "We are looking forward to the recording van visiting us very soon. The last time it toured the North-Western Province it unfortunately broke down and was not able to reach us. We have heaps of songs ready for the Broadcasting Officer to record.'' From East Africa and Rhodesia, August 19, 1954. Twenty Mrican choirs took part in the annual Coast musical festival in Mombasa. * * * * REPORT FROM LONDON by Mercedes Mackay EWE GoLD CoAST Music Most of the activity in the field of Mrican music in London has come from the music group of the West Mrican Arts Club. The group is still under the leadership of the dynamic drummer, Desmond Tay, who entertained Mr. Tracey at my. house during his recent visit to England. The group has been enlivened and improved by the arrival in this country of Kote Tay's wife who is a beautiful woman and an inspired dancer. In April the group gave an exhibition of drumming and dancing at the School of Oriental and Mrican Studies, and later in the month they gave a performance in Eastcote in Buckinghamshire in aid of the British Empire Society for the Blind. During the week in the summer that was devoted to the West Mrican Students' Union in an attempt to raise funds, the Group performed at the Conway Hall under the chairmanship of Reginald Sorenson, M.P., supported by Lord Strabolgi, Lord Hailsham, the High Commissioner for India, and the founder of the West Mrican Arts Cub, Dr. S. D. Cudjoe. On October 27th, the music group will perform at *
88 AFRICAN MUSIC SOCIETY JOURNAL the Horniman Museum at Forest Hill in an illustrated lecture called "Ewe Folk Tales, Children's Games, Drumming and Dancing." The West Mrican Arts Club is doing further research. The founder, Dr. Cudjoe, is hoping to go to the Gold Coast early next year to do personal research into drum rhythms. At present he is writing a book, in conjunction with Mr. Desmond Tay, in which Ewe rhythms and drum orchestras are being analysed. The drumming will be annotated in a way which will enable any musician to learn to play them. Mr. John Black, an oboe player with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, is taking a keen interest in the music group, and is helping to transcribe some of the songs. The founder of the Mrican Culture Trust, Mr. Ambrose Appelbe, who is the honorary solicitor to the West Mrican Arts Club, has voted funds for the issue of a new recording of Ewe drumming. The Club's first recording of Ewe Agbadza drumming, made under the leadership of Mr. Philip Gbeho, is now out of stock. The records of this were widely distributed, and complimentary copies were gratefully received by Professor Herskovitz of the Northwestern University, Illinois, and by Dr. Johnson of Fisk University, Alabama. Y ORUBA Musrc, NIGERIA The two talented brothers of the famous Y oruba organist, Mr. Fela Sowande, gave a joint concert of songs in May this year. The evening was arranged and given by Mrs. Harold Lewis in conjunction with the West Mrican Arts Oub. The Oub is most anxious to increase its activities in Nigeria, and Dr. Cudjoe gave an address of appreciation of the two artists. Olu Sowande of Jos, Nigeria, sang several Y oruba and Negro folk songs, one of which was arranged by his brother Fela. He was accompanied on the piano by his second brother, Yinka. A matrix of some of these songs was cut, and it is hoped later to publish the record. Olu Sowande has now returned to Nigeria. Following up their interest in Nigerian culture, the Club welcomed this year the new Editor of Nigeria. In a recent issue (No. 44) the editor, Mr. Mackrow, has included an excellently illustrated account of a new Y oruba opera by M. Ogunmule of Adde Akite, called "Love of Money". This follows other similar performances by the famous Y oruba impressario, Hubert Ogunde, whose recordings are widely bought in Nigeria. Mr. Beier of the Extra-Mural Department of Ibadan University has taken a tape recording of the opera, and has promised dubbings to the West Mrican Arts Club, while Mr. Mackrow has promised the Club copies of the photographs of the opera, and other cultural pictures for exhibition purposes. The small Y oruba guitar bands specialising in "cafe music" still find audiences in London and in various towns on the Continent. Ambrose Campbell and his West Mrican Rhythm Brothers perform at a Soho club called the Abilabi, and although the delights of this virile rhythm have not yet penetrated into Mayfair, there is a growing taste for Mrican dance music among the jazzmen and Mro-Cuban players. But on the whole, the West Mrican Arts Club can be regarded as the focal point of all serious efforts to introduce real Mrican music into London. Dr. Cudjoe, and the energetic club secretary, Miss Dorothy Brooks, are much to be congratulated. In September the first of the "Colloques de W egimont, Cercle International d'etudes Ethno-musicologues" was held. The following were present : Constantin Brailoiu, Directeur des Archives Internationales de Musique Populaire, Geneve; Marius Schneider, Director of the Spanish Institute of Musicology ; Walter Wiora, Professor of Musicology at the University of Freiburg i/ Br. ; Andre Schaeffner and Gilbert Rouget, of the Musee de!'homme ; Mlle. Marcel Dubois, Musee des Arts et Traditions Populaires. M. Paul Collaer is the Director of this new permanent organisation. The aim is to give opportunities of collaboration and team work to all proven musicologists. The studies and discussions of the above organisation will be published. This first meeting, under the patronage of the University of Liege, the city and province of Liege, proved highly successful. "Problemes d'mrique Centrale" issued a special number on Mrican music in December, 1954. Dr. Izikowitz, Director of the Ethnographical Museum in Gothenburg, writes that be made a trip to Brazil. While stopping over at Liege en route home, he attended a "colloquium" of ethno-musicology. On this occasion he heard a complete tape-recorded Court ceremony and other recordings from the Kasai region of the Belgian Congo. Dr. Soderberg has informed us that in Stockholm, Nordiska Musikforlaget is selling our long-playing discs (Music of Mrica Series) which have attracted.the appreciative attention of, inter alia, Dr. Eklund, historian of art in Riksforeningen for Bildande Konst..
NOTES AND NEWS 89 The collection of musical instruments of the Royal Museum of the Belgian Congo continues to increase, notably by the recent arrival of drums, of "vegetable" or metallic keyboard "sansas", of cordophones, etc., provided by the Pende, Suku, Y aka, Tshokwe, and other peoples of the Kasayi region. For several weeks these discs of indigenous music, recorded in the Congo (songs, instrumental music, etc.), have been broadcast in the public halls of the Museum, as well as every Sunday. Lectures are to be given at the Royal Museum during the next winter : two of these are concerned with Congo music :- (1) Music of the Congo Basin (in Dutch, with records) by M. Paul Collaer-November 21st, 1954 at 4 p.m. (2) Music of the Pende (in French, with records) by M. ].. N. Maquet-20th February, 1955 at 4 p.m. The organisation of a section of Congo Musicology at the Royal Museum, to which M. Collaer has already drawn attention, is continually being studied. M. Maquet has presented at the National Radio Institute of Belgium (I.N.R.) a series of lectures concerning Pende music, of which the text has been published under the title "Introduction to Congo Music" in Micro Magazine, 1954. --(Note by Dr. Olga Boone). From Time Magazine, November 24th, 1952. A BONGO FOR THE CONGO In the Belgian Congo last week, the most popular record was a song called Klim Abikisi Mwana. In their beehive huts, natives played it on their ancient, hand-cranked phonographs, clapping their hands gleefully to its calypso-like rhythm. Although the average Bantu labourer makes only about st a day, the record was so popular that some 15,000 had already been sold at $1.10 each. Nobody was happier at the song's success than George M. McCoy, executive vice-president of Borden Food Products Co., makers of Klim, a powdered whole milk. On a visit to Leopoldville two yea:rs ago, McCoy noticed that, after the bicycle, the phonograph was the natives' dearest possession. He got the owner of a local record company to help him write some lyrics in Lingala, the vernacular understood up and down the Congo River, set them to a jungle rhythm and had records made. The song : The child is going to die Because its mother's breast has given out Mama, 0 Mama, the child cries I Mama, 0 Mama, the child cries I If you want your child to get well, Give it Klim milk. Natives are not only buying K1im milk for their children, but many have started drinking it themselves. Result : sales are up about 85% in the Congo. Letter to the Rand Daily Mail, March 22nd, 1954: Sir,-! have seen suggestions in the Press recently that South Mrican Native music might have an influence in the future on European composers. Is this theory new? I ask the question because about 60 years ago I remember a famous music hall artist, Lottie Collins, mother of Jose, "Maid of the Mountains" star, introducing the song "Ta-rar-ra-Boom-de-ay". She did a high kick at the "Boom" part. The act created a furore in London. She told the Press that she had got the idea of the music from the Natives of South Mrica where she had done a tour shortly before the South Mrican War.-T.D. LECTURE IN JOHANNESBURG On Wednesday evening, May 5th, 1954, Professor Kirby lectured in the Mricana Museum on "The Most Expensive Form of Noise". The large audience included many members of the musical societies of Johannesburg, and of the Departments of Anthropology and of Music of Witwatersrand University. Dr. H. R. Raikes was in the Chair, and the Mricana Museum staff had placed on exhibition a selection of instruments from the Kirby collection, now housed with them. Professor Kirby, who had talked in the afternoon to a large audience of school children, was lecturing for the first time in Johannesburg since his retirement from the Chair of Music at Witwatersrand University, and his title was chosen from a remark made by Dr. Johnson. He began relating how he had become interested in Mrican music when he first came to South Africa as a young man. This early interest had led to a life-long study, which entailed detailed analysis and recording of African music, instruments, and musicians. Many instruments in the collection have a personal history attached to them. Using these instruments to demonstrate his points, Professor Kirby showed how primitive man, who had
90 AFRICAN MUSIC SOCmTY JOURNAL existed in Mrica until recent times, if not to the present-day, produced musical sounds by plucking the string of his weapon, the bow. To this invention he added that of the resonator. To begin with he used his mouth to increase the volume of sounds produced, but later he found that a calabash gave even better results. The tones evoked, said Professor Kirby, were those which form the natural 5-note scale, the harmonic series, and he demonstrated it on a primitive instrument. From music produced on the bow, Professor Kirby passed to flutes cut from reeds or hollow sticks. Men soon discovered that the note produced depended on the length of the tube, and, by stringing tubes of different lengths together, they obtained the "Pan pipes", an instrument with a scale of notes. A further step led them to the discovery that different notes, plus harmonics, could be obtained from one pipe, if holes were cut in it and "stopped" alternately with the tips of the fingers. It is Professor Kirby's contention that the 7-note scale originated in the 3-hole flute, and he commented on the varieties of that instrument from such widely separated regions as China, Provence, and South Mrica. His collection of instruments contains a facsimile of a Chinese flute dating from B.c. 2000. Mrican music thus throws light for us on margins of music everywhere and demonstrates its foundation on natural laws. Many instruments made by Mricans living today show us a stage of musical development which is really pre-ice-age. A vote of thanks to Professor Kirby was proposed by Mrs. Lorimer. She spoke of the valuable contribution that Professor Kirby has made to knowledge of music as a whole and to the particular value of his research work to South Mrica. E.K.L. A recently issued 2d. stamp in the Gold Coast features a pair of talking drums. Mr. John Blacking, a trained anthropologist and musician from King's College, Cambridge, has joined the staff of the International Library of Mrican Music where he will be concentrating upon the transcription and analysis of the music. An enquiry has been received from Oxford University regarding the possibilities of an Oxford expedition into Central or East Mrica in 1956 for the purpose of recording and studying the music of a single tribe or language group.